Hope nursing Love (after Reynolds)
Signed and dated 1800RCIN 404271
The subject of Hope nursing the infant Cupid at her breast gained popularity in early neoclassical art. The Prince of Wales may have recognised Reynolds’s model for the figure of Hope, an unsuccessful actress named ‘Miss Morris’, who was considered by contemporaries ‘unfit for the gross wear and tear of the stage’.
Painted for George IV, 1808